PPM Financials

Financial tracking related to project and portfolio management is a key strength of PowerSteering.

PowerSteering provides robust financial management capabilities to support project -and portfolio- level budgeting and planning. The application can track portfolio budgets, aggregate project budgets at the portfolio level to assess any shortfalls, and compare actual spend against total budget projections. Individual projects can be viewed at the portfolio level to see the impact of new projects on the current budget. Additionally, analysis can be performed to review the impact on the budget by adding/removing projects. The application not only allows comparison of actuals to both budgets and forecasts, but also allows the tracking of different iterations – e.g., original forecasts and revised forecasts.

Track Any Financial Category – Including Ongoing Benefits

Using PowerSteering’s flexible Financial Worksheets, customers are able to track any desired financial category at any level of detail. Typical financial “line items” include capital costs, expense items, workforce costs, material costs, expected revenue impact, and both hard and soft benefits. Financials may be tracked according to any desired reporting period, such as monthly, quarterly, or annually. All changes are easily tracked with a full audit trail, and the system can save every version if desired. Budget changes can be restricted to financial managers, and locked once audited. Benefits tracking and reporting can continue once a project is “closed,” to validate that completed initiatives are delivering the expected ROI.

Estimate, Capture, and Allocate Costs

PowerSteering provides detailed cost management, including full effort-based project cost estimating. It also provides detailed actual records of expense transactions such as material invoices. Costs can be captured at any level of detail, and either entered manually or derived based on configurable rate tables, activity and cost codes. Multiple versions of costs (i.e. baseline, plan, actual) can be maintained for auditing and variance reporting purposes. All costs can be aggregated at the project and portfolio levels. A complete audit trail is maintained to track when and by whom the cost was entered.

Manage Time & Labor

As part of the application’s cost functionality, PowerSteering provides comprehensive time management for the tracking and allocation of actual labor costs. Labor may be capitalized if desired, and capitalization of labor may be managed at any level detail in the work breakdown. For example, project labor may be capitalized on all work except that identified as overhead or project control work. PowerSteering provides easy project estimating based upon the time required in the project, and the system allows time to be entered by users to capture actual time logged against a project. Time may be captured at the project level or anywhere else in the work breakdown structure, and Rate Tables allow different cost rates to be applied based on the type of work, the user’s role on the project, etc. Upon submission, time sheets are automatically routed to the appropriate person for approval.

Leverage Powerful and Flexible Financial Metrics

Core to PowerSteering’s financial capabilities are Measures – completely configurable metrics that can accommodate any formula expression. Measures allow an organization to track any desired financial calculation, such as NPV or EVA, and can trigger Dashboard indicators or automated alerts when values fall outside of a pre-defined threshold. For example, during the project planning process, a Measure might be used to calculate the expected internal rate of return (IRR), and could callout via a red indicator any projects that fail to meet the minimum IRR hurdle the organization has set for project approval. The organization might also use Measures to automatically highlight project- or portfolio-level budget variances that exceed preset tolerances.